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Air China has signed a wide-reaching partnership agreement with Lufthansa Group to launch a JV on routes between Europe and China from the 2017 summer schedule. The agreement also extends to Austrian Airlines and SWISS. Both carriers signed a memorandum of understanding in summer 2014. Based on the agreement, the two carriers will better coordinate flight timetables, allowing them to provide customers with cheaper connections between route networks. They also plan to offer common fares, modify corporate programs to improve the products available to corporate customers, and examine opportunities for optimisation on existing connections in frequent flyer programs. Industry analysts said the joint venture between Air China and Lufthansa would make these two carriers “formidable” on Sino-Europe routes. <br/>

Austrian Airlines confirmed it will launch seasonal 6X-weekly Vienna-Los Angeles service from April 10, 2017, marking the carrier’s first destination on the US west coast. Austrian currently serves New York JFK, New York Newark, Miami, Chicago O’Hare and Toronto in North America. “We believe there is potential for this route because there is no direct competition from Vienna to Los Angeles,” Austrian CE Kay Kratky said. Initially, the Vienna-Los Angeles route will be served seasonally in the summer 2017 flight schedule with a Boeing 777-200ER. Separately, Austrian is preparing for a difficult 2016 second half. “My feelings for [the second half of the year] are not good ones,” Kratky said, citing a “double-digit drop in bookings” from the US and China to Europe following terrorist attacks in Europe and amid economic uncertainty. <br/>

Aegean Airlines saw its 2016 first-half results slip into the red, recording a net loss of E23.7m (US$26.3m) compared to a net profit of E14.8m a year ago. Revenue for the period was flat at E403.5m, compared to E403.6m in the year-ago half. First-half passenger numbers for Aegean and subsidiary Olympic Air rose 5%, from 4.96m to 5.22m year-over-year, but load factor dipped from 73.4% a year ago to 71% because of international capacity growth. In the domestic market, the weak Greek economy, plus a significant increase in competitors’ capacity and a jump in VAT from 13% to 24%, led to further pressure on average net fares. Despite the weak result in 1H, cash and cash equivalents reached E299.8m by June 30, up from E236.8m at the end of 2015 on higher pre-sold revenue, indicating an improvement in demand for Q3. <br/>